Part 1: Thera Awakening

The box version of Stonekeep came with a compact, 121-page novella titled Thera Awakening. Written by Steve Jackson and David Pulver, with illustrations by Spencer Kipe (Stonekeep's art director), it tells the story of an ancestor of Drake. While the characters don’t even visit Stonekeep itself in the book, it provides insight into the mythology and history of its world. This is helpful, since the game really drags its feet on giving you the backstory.




The story introduces us to Rathe, a young human soldier from Stonekeep, sent into the forest to find out what happened to a missing trade party. Rathe is an orphan and was raised by the dwarf Orvig, who has joined him on this assignment. Not out of companionship, but because the missing trade party included his sister, Jhen. They find the traders, minus Jhen, slaughtered and robbed of their goods. Rathe’s commander orders the troops home despite Orvig’s protests, but during the night, they are assaulted by giant mutant insects.




Rathe is on watch when a mysterious savage girl named Kelandra appears (savages are human as well, but they live in tribes and are less “civilized” than Stonekeep’s folk - Rathe’s watch commander suspects the savages of having slain their missing trading party) and warns him of the coming monsters. She names them Tse’Mara, or “Whispering Death.” Thanks to her warning, Rathe sounds the alarm and minimizes the casualties, though the watch commander and several others die, and Rathe himself is knocked unconscious by one of the creatures.




While he’s out, Rathe experiences a dream about a temple of volcanic glass that has been violated and damaged, and he sees patterns in the floor that form magic runes. He awakens in Fort Thunder, a retreat for Stonekeep’s loggers, and is informed of the outcome of the battle by one of the remaining soldiers. He meets with Orvig, who is performing an autopsy on some of the recovered insects. The creatures have a rune painted on their bodies with human blood. Rathe recognizes the rune from his dream and tells Orvig so, prompting the dwarf to reveal a number of things.

He quizzes Rathe on the origin of the gods, and the history of humanity and magic, much to Rathe’s surprise. Orvig then gives him a ring of volcanic glass that has a more elaborate version of the rune on the insects, and tells him it belonged to his parents. Rathe’s parents were Clave, a logger, and Rhea, a healer and priestess of the earth goddess Thera. Orvig tells Rathe that his mother had a vision when he was still a baby, prompting her to leave Stonekeep. As Rathe’s father would not let her go by herself, they left Rathe with Orvig and were never seen again. Orvig hints that the reason he has kept this knowledge – and ring – from Rathe for so long is because Rathe’s father made him promise to. While discussing the properties of blood magic, Rathe speculates that the rune inscribed in human blood on the creatures might be driving them to attack humans – but perhaps not dwarves. Which means Jhen could still live.




With the watch commander dead, Rathe is in charge of the remaining soldiers. As there is a chance that Orvig’s sister might still be alive, he sends the soldiers back to Stonekeep, but takes his adopted father with him as they cut through the forest into the valley of the savages, in pursuit of both Jhen and the savage girl that warned Rathe. They find a village that looks raided, but has no bodies. Ominously, there is a pile of Throg skulls accompanied by magical totems.




Rathe and Orvig again meet Kelandra, the only survivor of the village, and nearly kill her pet snake Akeshi in the process. She tells them how the Throgs raided her village and the other savage villages in the valley, using the Whispering Death as dogs of war. Kel reveals that she has certain shamanistic skills, and uses these to try and find where the Throgs are coming from, and where Orvig’s sister might be. She succeeds and locates Jhen in the dungeons of a nearby Throg stronghold, but in the process is attacked magically by the Throg shaman. Unseen insects swarm over her body, but Rathe manages to destroy them with his ring. Kel’s snake dies in the magical attack, trying to protect her.




Rathe, Orvig and Kel set out to find and infiltrate the Throggish stronghold. They ambush a small group of Throgs and interrogate a female Throg. She reveals that her tribe’s old shaman has been upstaged and imprisoned by a young, new shaman, who stole a source of power from a temple in the mountains and used that to bind the Whispering Death to his cause.




After locking the female Throg in a cave to free later, the three begin a grim work – they skin the corpses of the Throgs they killed, and using Kel’s magic, make convincing Throg disguises out of them. Using these, they enter the Throg stronghold to look for Jhen. They discover where Jhen is held, but as they free her and the old Throg shaman, they are swarmed by Throggish guards. Orvig escapes with his sister and the shaman, but Rathe and Kel are captured.




Rathe is brought before the new shaman, Gotha Karn, brandishing a scepter with an obsidian skull and the rune of the Whispering Death carved into it. Karn refuses to tell Rathe where he’s keeping Kel, but offers him a chance to get out alive – if he fights a forest creature and wins.




The forest creature turns out to be a giant snake. Rathe prepares to kill it, but then recognizes its movements. Using his ring, he dispells the magic binding the creature and it turns into Kel. Rathe and Kel are tossed into a cell again, where she explains that she is a were-snake, punished by her tribe for using her magic for wrong purposes. They were going to put her to death, but were persuaded to this punishment instead by a travelling priestess – Rathe’s mother.




While this has been going on, luckily, Orvig hasn’t been sitting still. The old Throg shaman has unleashed a rebellion inside the stronghold, and his soldiers free Rathe and Kel, and reunite them with Orvig and Jhen. The rebels have captured Gotha Karn’s son, and Rathe has him lead them to the temple where Karn found the skull. It is the temple from Rathe’s dream, one of Thera’s temples. At the entrance stands a headless skeletal guardian of volcanic glass. Rathe uses his ring to restore the statue, just as within the stronghold, Gotha Karn prepares to sic the Whispering Death on his enemies. The skull vanishes from his hands, and he is killed by his former servants. Just before he dies, Gotha Karn curses the name of Wahooka, which clears up how a little Throg shaman managed to defeat the magical guardian of Thera’s temple and steal his head...

With Gotha Karn and his loyal Throgs defeated, the remaining Throgs can make peace with the humans again. Rathe and Kel intend to marry in the temple of Thera, which the Throgs and Dwarves are together working to restore. In doing so, they are actually returning some power to Thera, “loosening a finger” for her to act within the world. Here the story ends.




Somewhere down the line, the union of Kel and Rathe – one of the last of “Thera’s line” – produces Drake, the boy. Thera’s restored power then allows her enough freedom to recruit Drake for the purpose of fighting Khull-Khuum and saving the gods from their imprisonment.


I'll elaborate on the mythology and history of Stonekeep more in a future update.